Scottish National Day!

There is a bumper day of action to look forward to this afternoon with six meetings taking place.  There are four flat cards from Newbury, Thirsk, Nottingham and Wolverhampton as well as jumps meetings from Ayr and Bangor.  It is Scottish National day at Ayr and the stable has two runners in the big race at 3.45pm; Broadway Buffalo (pictured above) and Amigo.  Also at Ayr we run Border Breaker and Street Entertainer.  Ideally Broadway Buffalo could do with softer ground, although he has won on good ground and ran a cracker on a similar surface in the four miler at the Cheltenham Festival.  The trouble is that Ayr can dry out very quickly, as it did on this card two years ago.  Meanwhile, Amigo finished a good runner-up at Newbury last time and a big run is expected from the pair of them.  Can you believe it though?  30 runners and A P is without a ride!

If you are thinking of having a wager on the Scottish National today make sure you shop around, especially if you are looking to have an each-way bet.  Many of the bookies including Coral and Paddy Power are now paying out on the first five home, just check the bet conditions first.

There were no winners for Tom Scu yesterday so Tom Watch remains on 146 with just a week of the season remaining.  Scu has three rides at Stratford tomorrow so hopefully he will be another step or two closer to that magical 150.  I know that is a figure he is very keen to reach - he was telling me only the other day that only five jockeys have ever achieved that milestone...not a lot of people know that!

Talking of tomorrow's action, I see that there is a two horse race at Wincanton - I think personally I would have knocked that on the head and tried to put something else on.  I bet if there had been a seller or a claimer on the card, there would have been more runners.

Did you know that in 1923 jockey Frank Hayes suffered a fatal heart attack mid race and won despite being dead?  I wonder how on earth he weighed in?!

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There is an interesting advertisement in today's Racing Post as Liverpool University are looking for students.  I would have thought it was mostly punters who take the Racing Post - perhaps they are looking for form students?!

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You have to love the 'Special One' Jose Mourinho!  He says that Manchester City shouldn't sack manager Manuel Pellegrini.  Let me think, Chelsea are 12 points ahead of City with a game in hand...I think if I were in charge of Chelsea I would want City to keep Pellegrini too!

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Pretty much as expected, the cricket between West Indies and England finished in a draw with England only able to collect seven wickets.  It was a good day for Jimmy Anderson though as he became England's leading wicket taker, surpassing Sir Ian Botham with 384 Test wickets.  The result should take the pressure off of captain Alistair Cook for a little while.

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Finally, another useless fact for the day...did you know that farmers in England are required to provide their pigs with toys?  I wonder if you gave them a Game Boy, would they hog the controls?!  Keep smiling.

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